Seattle Cosmic Game Night, Saturday, 8 February 2003

More Fun Than Usual!

Seattle Cosmic convened for battle (is "convened" the right word?) again on 8 February at the house of Tim Higgins in Mill Creek (Bothell), Washington. Present were Tim Higgins, Marty_Hale-Evans?, Ron_Hale-Evans? (me), Alex_Rockwell?, John_Braley?, Mark Haggerty, Steve_Vall\xE9e?, David_Adams?, Kathy Kizer, Tim Schutz, ChadUrsoMcDaniel, and Mark Purtill.

It was a nice surprise to see Mark Purtill again, a one-time regular, practically a charter member of Seattle Cosmic, who has not popped by in months; it was also nice to see Tim Schutz, who doesn't often make it this far north. Notably missing from the gamers present were Nat and Steve Dupree.

Thanks to Steve Vall\xE9e for snapping some photos while I was wedged into the kitchen playing San Marco. He made it possible for me to have a head this week too! (Thanks also to Chad, who has now added some pictures too. Hey, this Wiki thing is great!)

--Ron_Hale-Evans?

So, notably missing from the list of people notably missing from game night is me and Kisa. I suppose we weren't even missed a tiny bit...

--Meredith_Hale?

Nope, not at all. ;)

--Marty_Hale-Evans?

No, it's just that we knew where you were. We haven't attached a GPS unit to Nat and Steve's car yet.

--Ron_Hale-Evans?

You better be there next time... I'm looking forward to looking at the HP [Harry Potter] cards. ;)

--Alex_Rockwell?

We were on a last-minute vacation to Vancouver, BC. Ironically, Mer and Kisa knew where we were, but weren't at GN to tell anyone.

--Steve_Dupree?

OK, so maybe we should have a buddy system. Kisa and I know where Steve and Nat are at all times, Marty and Ron know where Kisa and I are... OK, kidding of course. I plan to be there next time, though we may be heading to Mt. Rainier that day (if nobody hears from us, please call the Rangers!). I'll have my HP cards with me. That way I'll have them for game night, and if we get lost in the mountains, we'll have something to do and Kisa will have to play HP with me! Mwah-ha-ha-ha!

--Meredith_Hale?

Don't worry, Kisa; it's a good game... one of the top CCGs IMO. Of course, if you dislike all CCGs, I can't help you there. ;)

--Alex_Rockwell?

Abenteuer Menschheit

The South Side Express (that is, the Hale-Evans van) showed up on time for once, at 5:00 sharpish, with Marty and Ron, as well as Alex R, John B, and Mark H. Tim H immediately dragooned Marty, Alex, and Mark into a game of Abenteuer_Menschheit?, leaving John and me to fend for ourselves (we played Entropy; see below).

(It was hardly "dragooned", or even shanghaied - despite my sucky performance lately, AM is one of my current favorites. Besides, it mainly happened because Tim and I, as usual, couldn't scare up enough players for Catan. --Marty_Hale-Evans?)

The four AM players opted to play without the Deck_of_Dice?, which Marty said was for wimps.

Left to right: Tim, Marty, Alex, part of Mark

Alex won the game. Marty, who usually does well at Settlers variants, made a big mistake early in the game: she illegally crossed from Asia to Australia without a high enough tech level. She built a city there, then discovered her mistake and agreed to a fairly stiff penalty. Alex did the same thing, but for various reasons his mistake did not cost him as much. Mark capitalised on Marty's mistake (for which he was chided as being unsporting by Tim), at which point Marty lost interest in the game and things went to perdition for her from there. Better luck next time, Marty, and congratulations to Alex.

(Thank you, but it wasn't just the capitalizing on my mistake that caused Mark to be chided; it was insisting on re-opening the issue for a third time, after we had all agreed on a resolution twice, just to hose me out of my village when there were other places almost as good to build instead. Didn't help him out much, though... --Marty_Hale-Evans?)

Alex was awarded a deck of old Magic:_The_Gathering? cards at his request, with a few semi-valuable cards contained within.

Scores

--Ron_Hale-Evans?

Tim and Marty were against the Deck of Dice, and thus I didn't push for it, though I like it. The Deck of Dice is just a deck of 36 cards containing all possible combinations of 2 six-sided dice, to ensure a balanced amount of draws (rolls) of each number. In this game, I had a great deal of luck, primarily in the middle game, where an excessive number of 10's and 11's were rolled, both of which were very good for me.

We had a problem with forgetting the technology requirement to pass into Australia, as Ron mentioned. Tim went in (with appropriate technology), taking the event, and then all of the rest of us were trying to move down there too. Not having the event tile there, there was less visual reminder of the requirement to pass there, and as we haven't played the game very much, we forgot. My oversight was not huge; I was missing only one technology level, and had just moved a nomad onto the tip of Australia. I could have kept him back in his previous location, waited until next turn, and then paid the cost for the level and moved him in. However, Marty was missing 4 levels of technology and had moved in earlier, even building a settlement down there, before we all realized what had happened. The oversight is understandable, as we have only played the game a couple times. It was a bit disruptive in figuring out what should have happened, however. It took Marty awhile to get the resources needed to pay the cost to travel there, and in the meantime both I and Mark wanted to build on the site she had "built" her settlement on. We eventually worked it out, however.

(Well, kinda. The game was effectively over at that point for me, since I still lost momentum and my plan, even though I got semi-reimbursed in cards after the giant wrangle. The cost was hard enough to pay back, and I lost a lot of time doing it, but it also demolished the center out of my already-precarious game, so there really wasn't any way to come back from it, especially since I had already been tailing you and Tim anyway. --Marty_Hale-Evans?)

Earlier in the game, my good luck / large lead earned the displeasure of the other players. Tim joked that I couldn't eat any pizza that night, and Marty joked that I wouldn't be getting a ride home. ;) But they have only themselves to blame, as they had been against the use of the Deck of Dice!

Tim played extremely well, I felt, gaining two quick, well placed settlements in Asia and Europe, and going on to get the 2 victory point bonus for settling in all four continents. Had it not been for my luck in rolling 10's and 11's, he most probably would have won.

A great game that I expect to play many more times in the future.

--Alex_Rockwell?

You see? You've got to use the Deck of Dice, people. It's a recognised Settlers variant. But nooo, you had to be tough guys...

--Ron_Hale-Evans?

It's not just about being tough; I seriously think it adds something to the game. I don't mind having luck against me sometimes, because I think the luck element adds excitement to it, and helps keep each game different. It's not such an overwhelming factor that skill can't mostly overcome it in this game. Transforming a dice game into a card-counting game is not a good tradeoff for me, since card-counting sucks my will to live.

--Marty_Hale-Evans?

I'm with Marty here. One of the best features of dice is the rolling and variety factor. (I happen to love the feel of rolling dice, but I'm weird.) I think the Deck of Dice is hella-lame. What's the matter, roll the dice!

--Meredith_Hale?

Entropy

Meanwhile, at Table 1 in the dining room, my spirit was being just as relentlessly crushed as Marty's, by John in a game of Entropy. ("Oh, this game again", said Tim H as he wandered through.)

We spent a few minutes leafing through my GameSystems notebook (with rules for piecepack and Icehouse games, games using the Set deck, and 8x8 games such as Breakthrough). But I couldn't postpone my doom forever; John's well-known strategic ability and my well-known disability to "see the whole board" combined to give John an astonishing score of 136 as Order. (This is the highest score I have ever seen personally, as well as the highest score I have ever heard of.) At one point I let John make a big score because I was distracted by the Chinatown? game setting up at the other end of the table, even though they set up and played quietly. John said I was playing with "Marty focus" -- playing well and then getting distracted. (I couldn't have been playing that well.)

I played Order second. By that time I was already discouraged by John's extraordinarily high score, and I played badly, stubbornly. I petulantly squandered tempo on a minor battle in one corner of the board that gained me only a few points. I pretty much gave up on the game halfway through, and scored my own personal worst: 54, which may also be the lowest score I have ever seen. Yes, it really was lower-lip-quivering time...

The man who crushed my spirit. He looks so friendly, doesn't he?

For the record, 100 is considered an excellent score in Entropy. I am still trying to break into three digits in my Entropy playing. Last week (SeattleCosmicGameNight20030201) I beat Chad 95-86, and the night before this big loss, I had lost to Marty (a very good Entropy player) 94-91. (When I started playing Entropy, my scores were mostly in the low 70s.)

John was awarded a pair of toy American eagles that walk toward the edge of the table, much as our Republic is currently approaching the abyss. John claimed he wasn't quite awake and was playing in a sort of fugue state, which might have been what gave him his edge. Uh, sure, John...

I'd better get back on that horse before I lose my Entropy nerve entirely.

Scores

--Ron_Hale-Evans?

Clearly, playing 2-player abstract games against a chess master is a good way to get killed.

--Alex_Rockwell?

Playing strategy games with John is a good way to get killed. He has such an excellent mind for such things.

--Meredith_Hale?

Chinatown

Steve V showed up around 5:45, Dave A and Kathy K around 5:50 (bearing a bag of deliciously rupturable chocolate eyeballs), and Tim S around 6:10 (bearing a copy of Kensington? for the Seattle Cosmic Game Library). Dave, Kathy, and Tim started a game of Chinatown? at the other end of Table 1 around 6:15.

Left to right: Kathy, Dave, Tim

I've only played Chinatown once, and I don't remember much about it except that it's similar to Acquire in that it's a financial game in which it is advantageous to form blocks of the same business. Kathy, who is in a financial profession, usually does well at financial games, and indeed cleaned up tonight.

The game ended around 7:30, and Kathy was awarded a soft foam rock to throw at the screen when outraged by TV news. Dave and Kathy, who could only stay a little while, then departed around 7:45, leaving a trail of chocolate eyeballs behind them (the fudge ones are the best).

Scores

Comments from the players?

--Ron_Hale-Evans?

It's good to see that people are still enjoying the eyeballs. We were wondering what Dave and Kathy were going to do with them....

--Steve_Dupree?

Savannah Cafe (x2)

Chad McD? showed up around 6:40, and Mark P showed up around 6:50 (and glad we were to see him). From 7ish to 7:30ish, Mark P, Chad McD?, and Steve V played two games of Savannah_Cafe?. I don't know much about this game except that it features competing lions, gazelles, and hippopotami, each of which can trump the other in a manner superficially similar to Zoff_im_Zoo?. It looks like fun; I'd like to try it sometime.

Mark P won both games, and was awarded two smiley-face balls for his double triumph.

--Ron_Hale-Evans?

Well, at first it seemed that gazelles always win. So I searched on the net, and found that, yes, played by newbies that's what is expected, but the more players are applying proper strategies, the less likely gazelles are winning.

Still, I have two ideas that may improve the playability for the newbies we are:

1) Remove one gazelle +9 card.
2) Draw/Exchange a card AFTER playing one of the three we have (instead of before). This way, a player with a gazelle near the end can be more easily countered by opponents.

But at the end, it's a mostly luck-driven game and very light, maybe to relax between two Civ games :)

--Steve_Vall\xE9e?

Citadels

At some point after their games of Savannah Cafe, Chad, Mark P, and Steve V managed to squeeze in a game of Bruno Faidutti's Citadels?. This highly tactical game is one of my favourites and in fact is part of my EmergencyGameKit, but I won't describe it here; I'll just note that Mark P won this one too; I think we owe him a prize.

GENERIC CAPTION: Someone says something funny. Clockwise from L: Steve, Chad, Mark.

Scores

--Ron_Hale-Evans?

To beat up Chad turn after turn (with thieves and assassins) was kinda funny, but then, the little war between him and I let Mark kick our ass. Can Mark P lose at ANY game? Citadels is definitely one of my preferred games ever. Actually, I would LOVE to play at least once every Saturday night. If only I can find some other fanatic players like me... Ron ?

--Steve_Vall\xE9e?

Oh, I'm sure I can be coaxed into a few games soon. And as I said, it's pretty much always with me at game night.

--Ron_Hale-Evans?

San Marco

Around 7:40, Tim H, John B, Marty and I sat down at Table 2 in the kitchen for a delightfully subdued game of San_Marco?. I had been wanting to play this game for months, ever since I heard of its central mechanism (about which more in a moment).

After the game, Chad said, "Ron, I thought you normally avoid that sort of game." Chad was partly right. Superficially, San Marco is a vanilla MajorityPlacementGame? of the sort I usually avoid, with perhaps a few coloured sprinkles in the form of bridges that can be placed to connect islands and facilitate token placement. However, the heart and soul of the game, the (as it were) coconut, toasted almond, and chocolate chunk mix-ins, are the central "I divide and you choose" method of distributing action and penalty cards among the players. I am so fascinated by "King Solomon's method", also known as "envy-free division", that I have been trying to track down a book about the phenomenon, called Fair Division: From Cake-Cutting to Dispute Resolution by Steven Brams and Alan Taylor. (Here is an article discussing their work. I just realised I've been Googling the book under the title Fair Divisions with an 's', so that's why I've had no luck.) To take envy-free division and turn it into a competitive mechanism in a strategy game has roughly the same effect on me as a Pan-Galactic Gargleblaster on Zaphod Beeblebrox. It seems to have the same effect on others as well; the options for both divider and chooser are so agonising that John Braley, who had played before, remarked at the start, "This is a delicious game for masochists."

1. San Marco board.
2. Clockwise from top left: Ron, John, Tim, Marty-part.

There are three rounds, or "passages" in the game, each of which ends when players accumulate a critical mass of penalty cards. During each passage, a player can score an island by playing a Doge card to bring the Doge to the island (thus making San Marco another game in which one can exclaim, "And I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for ThatMeddlingKing!" -- or Doge). Vanilla majority placement rules apply here; you know the routine. But first, on each turn of the round, you either divide action and penalty cards available into stacks or choose among the stacks. The delight comes (as divider) in trying to tempt your opponent into taking some bad cards along with some good (that is, making an offer your opponent can't refuse), or (as chooser) by outsmarting the divider and finding a way to make some strategically sound moves with the stack of cards you know the divider really doesn't want you to have. The second-guessing! The third- and fourth-guessing!

I haven't played this with three players, but in our four-player game, we were constantly being paired and re-paired with one another as dividers and choosers. (Three-way splits only came up twice in this game; apparently they happen all the time in a three-player game.) Marty (my wife) and I seemed to be paired disproportionately often; this was fun, because we know each other so well and could offer (and foil) some tough choices. At one point Marty looked up from the two piles I offered her and said, "Panderer!"

John agonised, as expected (see the JohnFactor), but Tim ordered him, "Must choose! You promised no brain-lock!" John moved more quickly after that.

I took a strong early lead, but Marty leapt from 0 points for most of the first passage to tie for first with me (24 points) at the end of the first passage. There was much reversal of fortune in the second passage, as five Doge cards turned up, and there were many Banishment cards as well. (These let you delete from 1 to 6 tokens from an island, and can change the balance of power quickly. However, because they rely on a six-sided die roll, they are somewhat chaotic. John said, "We really shouldn't be using dice; we need a Banishment Deck!", alluding to the Deck_of_Dice? that we sometimes use to replace dice rolls.)

In any case, John and Tim leapt into the lead and then kept leapfrogging each other for most of the second and third passages. Marty was a solid third, and I was a solid fourth. However, at the very end of the game, there is a general scoring of islands, so toward the end, I concentrated on getting cards that would allow me to get either first or second place scoring on a large number of islands, and let my opponents take the Doge cards (or tempted them to). It paid off, because after a low Banishment roll on John's part and a high one on mine, I scored big in the general reckoning and tied with John for 79 points. The tie-breaker, which we had to look up because no one in the game knew it, was who had the most tokens on the island of San Marco. That was me (as a side effect of trying to have the most tokens around generally). Final scores were as follows:

Scores

I was not disappointed with San Marco, and plan to buy the game while it is still in print. I would have preferred the secondary mechanism to be something other than a MajorityPlacementGame?, probably something more "pure" and abstract, but this is a quibble. Overall, I think it is a superb game, and in a way, an interesting meditation on fairness.

After the game, I settled down with a book I had just received in the mail after waiting for weeks, Forever For All: Moral Philosophy, Cryonics, and the Scientific Prospects for Immortality by R. Michael Perry. (I'm a lapsed cryonicist; I couldn't afford the life insurance payments.) Taking a break also gave me a chance both to lick my wounds (after losing to John in Entropy), and to rest on my laurels (after beating him, Tim, and Marty in San_Marco?).

--Ron_Hale-Evans?

This was my first play of San Marco, and I quite liked it. As opposed to Ron, I actually do like this kind of game in general, and the psychological/strategic aspect definitely added to the interest.

My take on it was that I was actually leading most of the game; while I wasn't ahead literally on the scoring track, I was amassing and consolidating a commanding presence on the board in most of the areas. I felt that if I could hold onto the first or second place in most areas most of the time, I would be bound to benefit from almost any scoring card, and with luck would accumulate the most points overall. I was also looking toward the end scoring, and I think I would have had a very strong position. However, due to inexperience in being able to manipulate and combine the cards, I made a semi-bad choice at the beginning of the last passage, which put me in a position to be trapped on the second hand of the last passage into sitting out the final hand. Being distracted by struggling in the second hand and helpless in the last hand allowed my opponents to undermine my presence sufficiently so that I was neutralized. Dangit.

--Marty_Hale-Evans?

I think you are correct, Marty, and I think John and Tim agreed at the time that even though you weren't high on the scoring track, you were a major menace. However, I focused on the scoring track in the notes I took at the time. Didn't I say I have trouble "seeing the whole board"?

--Ron_Hale-Evans?

Cosmic Creators (prototype)

Meanwhile, Tim Schutz playtested his game Cosmic Creators with Mark P and Mark H. I can't say much about this game, as Tim intends to enter it in next year's Hippodice Competition, but I can tell you that players take the role of gods creating galaxies and attempting to garner as many worshippers as possible in them. The theme is superficially similar to Michael Schacht's game Gods?, but although I haven't played the latter, the mechanics of the two games look extremely different after reading the rules. I've played an earlier version of Cosmic Creators (and given feedback) and I'd like to say that I think Tim is really growing and developing as a game designer. This is his best game yet (and Tim assures me this is the best version yet of the game).

The game lasted about an hour and a half, and Mark Purtill won (again!). He was awarded a copy of the game zine Countermoves 3.

1. Left to right: Mark Haggerty, Cosmic Creators creator Tim Schutz.
2. Mark P, Mark H, Tim S (L-R).

Scores

Comments from the players?

--Ron_Hale-Evans?

Aladdin's Dragons

From 9ish to 10:30ish, Chad McD?, Steve V, and Alex R played a game of Aladdin's_Dragons? (with a brief pause as they moved from Table 1 to Table 2 to make room for WildLife?; see below). I don't think we've played Aladdin's Dragons before at Seattle Cosmic. I had never wanted to, myself; although it won Game of the Year from Games Magazine a couple of years ago, I had heard the prevalent blind bidding made the game too chaotic. However, the shouts of jubilation and despair issuing from the kitchen, and the high opinion of Alex Rockwell, an excellent strategist, make me want to give this a spin on the table soon.

1. The Aladdin's Dragons board.
2. Left to right: Steve V and Chad McD? play Aladdin's Dragons, while Mark P debates a point in Cosmic Creators (far right).

Steve V won this game, and was awarded a handful of eye-poppers. (Stop, stop, don't pop on Pop!)

Scores

--Ron_Hale-Evans?

Well, I can see how this game may be seen as chaotic, but it's chaotic in a very fun way. ;) Each player has a set of pieces numbered 1 through 9, which are placed face down in various areas of the board, competing for different resources or abilities. Players take turns placing pieces, and then once all the pieces are placed, they are turned face up, and the player with the greatest total value of pieces in that location gets the prize. In some areas, there are prizes for second and/or third. At the bottom of the board is the dragon's lair. Each round, a dragon card is flipped up which says which dragons have treasure, and how much is to be awarded for 1st/2nd/3rd place in that area that round. This is the primary way players acquire resources: by competing for and winning these treasures. Of course, sometimes the prize might be a bunch for first place, and nothing for second! At other times the difference between first and second might be only a small gem. Turning over the tiles to reveal that one player put down their 9 and 8 and beat the others who each looked to have put down more, or that someone had placed a tile to contest for a small treasure, and no one had bothered to fight them, and the tile they placed was actually their 1, is quite fun.

Other areas to fight for control of are the market (trade one gem for 3 gems of other colors... which can help create colors you have a lot of); the caravanserai, the winner of which gains the camel (which means they go first, and break ties); and so on.

At the top is the palace. Here, players must play a number high enough to defeat the palace guard to enter and compete for the artifacts in the palace. But the palace guard is a number randomly chosen between 1 and 10! So it's possible for a player who fought hard over the artifacts to not even get in (and thus lose the benefit of the pieces played in the palace), because the palace guard was too high for them, while a player who played a high number against the guard and less inside the palace walks away with the artifacts for cheap. We had this happen a couple times, and it was the source of great enjoyment.

One of the things I like about this game is that even when bad things happen to you, it's fun and entertaining.

We played the basic version, which has a couple less areas of the board to fight over, and doesn't use the abilities of the artifacts you gain. This was because none of us had played before. We also played a mini-game beforehand, as suggested in the rules, to get a hang of how things work. Scores for the mini-game for learning were Alex: 4, Chad: 3, Steve: 2. We will likely play the full version later.

--Alex_Rockwell?

Sounds as though each turn of Aladdin's Dragons consists of multiple parallel turns of Raj?, in which case, count me in!

--Ron_Hale-Evans?

That's a pretty good description. It's certainly fun in the same way that Raj is fun. You reveal the stuff people placed face down, and then watch as people win with a low number, or outdid your big number with something slightly bigger....

--Alex_Rockwell?

I like auction games! This and Pizzaro_&_Co.? are two that I like very much and they are quite different in play. I really do enjoy how AD has you bidding on auctions in an unstructured manner but they are revealed as a story from the dragons, through the market and to the palace. Next time, I'm going to try a tactic I thought up near the end (note to self.)

--ChadUrsoMcDaniel

WildLife?

The evening ended for many, as it started for many, with the prehistoric struggle of humankind for survival. This time the game was WildLife? rather than Abenteuer_Menschheit?. No scores and winner were declared, and no prize was given, because the players made a major mistake throughout most of the game: they believed a tied marker on the scoring track could leapfrog to the next empty space, as in Ursuppe? and Urland?. This problem was compounded by the fact that it is possible to "target" scores fairly accurately, allowing people to leapfrog many spaces if they were crafty.

Tim S left around midnight, but first he showed Alex R how to take his place. In the end, it didn't matter; there was neither the thrill of victory nor the agony of defeat for anyone at the table, but most people agreed they'd like to try the game again with the right rules.

1. WildLife? board.
2. Tim S teaches Alex R the WildLife? ropes. Proceeding clockwise: John B, Mark H, Marty H-E, Mark P, Tim H.

Scores

--Ron_Hale-Evans?

Interesting game. I came in for Tim S late in the play, and only played the last half a turn, but it was enough to give me a feel for it so I could play it again from the start without having to go over the rules. Some errors had been made in the scoring earlier, and we felt the game would go on a long time, and had been a good trial run. We plan to play a full game, with correct rules, soon.

--Alex_Rockwell?

This was my second play of this game, but it's sufficiently complex that I didn't remember a significant amount of strategy. However, I was swiftly reminded that timing is everything; having a good plan is no help if you can't control when the scoring happens. This can be especially dodgy because the game takes so many players (according to Tim H, best with six, because fewer unbalances the game significantly) -- turns don't come around fast enough! It also helps if CERTAIN players refrain from making moves out of spite that mess you up while NOT providing significant strategic benefit to justify them! (No names mentioned, Player-Whose-Name-Begins-With-A-Ends-With-X-and-Contains-LE!)

I think most of us are still working out the potential strategies of this game, although last night I was reminded how much more quickly I learn games when playing alongside Mark P, whose quick and flexible mind picks up subtleties that mine misses, and who fortunately is happy to discuss game structure and the relationship of rules to playing choices. :)

--Marty_Hale-Evans?

What? Gaining 3 points for myself, that no one could stop, and getting revenge for a destroyed unit is unjustified? ;) Better not go killing my guys next time we play. ;)

--Alex_Rockwell?

That kind of bullying is hardly sporting. Maybe I should divert my energies to taking your guys down in the next game we play together, just to teach you a lesson in sportsmanship. Do you actually find cross-game vendettas fun, or are you just trying to establish a "reputation"?

(Later.) OK, that was way out of line. I'm sorry. Yet another example of my "adamantine posterior".

--Ron_Hale-Evans?

No, sorry, I was just joking. I never carry things over into later games... that's bad play. I made the move because it gained me 3 points, for just one creature, and the gain was going to be near immediate, with not much chance for anyone to take it away.

--Alex_Rockwell?

WildLife? always gets played when I'm not around... I'm hoping to get in on the next game.

--Meredith_Hale?

Netrunner

Before he took over Tim's position in WildLife?, Alex played a game of Netrunner against Chad McD?. Alex was the Runner, as I was last week (SeattleCosmicGameNight20030201), and again the Runner beat the Corporation. Alex scored 10 points for his victory, and Chad scored 3 points for the Agendas he had enacted. (I just learned how to score Netrunner games; that would place me at 10-4 versus Chad for last week.)

Chad says his Corporate decks need more tuning. He left after the Netrunner game, at 11:35 PM.

Scores

Do we owe Alex a prize for this game?

--Ron_Hale-Evans?

Netrunner CCG has been discussed in the group a bit recently, and several of us wanted to give it a go. I have no cards, and haven't played in years, so I used one of Chad's decks against his other one. I got some good money generating cards, and actually had more money as the Runner (hacker) than the Corporation did! This allowed me to purchase several good codebreaking programs (once I finally drew them!), and I soon had the ability to break through all three types of Ice: sentries, code gates, and walls. I had also managed to make a couple successful runs on Chad's HQ (hand), with a piece of hardware (card I had put into play), which allowed me to access two cards when I got into HQ. I found two of his Agendas in his hand, and gained 6 points from them, leaving me 1 point from the win. Chad finished one Agenda and started working on a second, protected by three pieces of Ice. Once I got all my code breaking programs I made a run at it, and successfully broke through the first two pieces of ice that Chad "rezzed" (activated by paying its cost to turn it face up). I was nearly out of resources so I doubted that I could break the third piece if Chad could rez it, but he didn't have enough money left to activate it, and so I went through for the victory, gaining access to his Agenda that he had been protecting. The game is based on the Neuromancer books... I haven't read them.

I look forward to playing some more Netrunner in the future (and I love playing the Corp... it's so fun to lay pieces of Ice face down and then see whether the Runner dares to go through them or not). ;)

--Alex_Rockwell?

Hey, Alex, don't you play the Corp for a living? ;)

--Ron_Hale-Evans?

Yeah, in a way. ;) Gotta stop those darn hackers.

--Alex_Rockwell?

The Corp deck is seriously income-starved. That's what I intend to correct. I did misplay a few times; I'm not used to the feel of the Corporation anymore.

I guess the Runner deck is looking quite playable at the moment, though.

--ChadUrsoMcDaniel

Magic: The Gathering

We had been talking all week about playing CollectibleCardGames at this week's meeting, and besides Netrunner, Alex managed to squeeze in two games of Magic:_The_Gathering? at some point during the evening, first against Steve V, then against Chad. Since Alex is a former tournament Magic player and brought his own tuned decks, he won both games handily by all accounts.

1. Enya looks on from the piano as Steve (L) battles Alex.
2. The squirrels are coming! (Note shiny foil cards.)

I'm not sure shark Alex deserves a prize for these games... What do you think? :)

--Ron_Hale-Evans?

Well, it was more like 6 or 7 games, I think... And yeah, the outcome of the games was never really at issue, though some of them took a lot longer than others. The first deck that Steve played, his Sliver deck, was his strongest, and had me scared for a little while, before I was able to overrun him with an army of squirrels. After overrunning him a number of times with squirrel armies, accompanied by lots of mana denial (which I just could not manage to draw the first couple games), I played some games with Chad (who used Steve's decks). It was fun, as it has been a long time since I played Magic. My decks were my type two tournament decks from the last time I played Magic competitively, a couple years ago.

Also, I think that prizes probably aren't necessary for CCG games... else you will run out of prizes really fast. I think they are best for more than 2 player games which take at least 30 minutes or so, if not more. Otherwise it's hard to find enough of them.

--Alex_Rockwell?

I wasn't aware you had played quite so many games. What we usually do in the case of multiple fast, short games is award a prize to the person who won the majority or plurality of the games. This is what we usually do with Zendo, for instance.

P.S. An army of squirrels?

--Ron_Hale-Evans?

Yeah, squirrels are a beating. ;) There is an Elf (deranged hermit) that creates 4 squirrels, and makes all squirrels stronger. Getting 2 of them means 8 really big squirrels... three means 12 huge squirrels, etc. And then there is a guy that lets you look through your deck for any Elf and put it into play... so it's an instant squirrel factory. It's great when you attack with 4 squirrels, and your opponent thinks: OK, I can handle this, and blocks, and then you immediately bring another hermit into play, making all of them bigger so they kill your opponent's blockers, and providing four more squirrels to defend you on his turn. ;)

Take the squirrel generation, add some more offense, a lot of speed, and then a bunch of mana denial to prevent your opponent to do anything while you run over them with squirrels... It's funny; most theme decks are not tournament worthy, but this was my elf/squirrel deck that did very good in tournaments. The best part is, I can think of two other squirrel-based decks that were top tournament decks in various formats. ;)

In the shot in the picture, I have access to 27 mana per turn ;) (4 lands, 1 Llanowar elf, 5 from Priest of Titania, 3 from Rofellos, 14 from Gaia's Cradle. :) )

--Alex_Rockwell?

Game night wrapped up around 12:30 with a WildLife? post-mortem. There was also a rehash by Mark P and interested players of previous games of Space_Pigs?. Mark thought that playing without special powers for the pig clans might improve the game; other players thought that there was too much control by one player distributing the acorn resources, and that this would be hard to fix.

Despite the broken heater in our van, the South Side Express, there was much merriment on the way home, and those present agreed it had been an exceptionally fun game night. Next week will be a CosmicNight, so among other games, we'll be playing Cosmic_Encounter?, one of the several games that Space Pigs parodies. Anyone interested in a post-newbie level game, with Lucre, Moons, and/or Reverse Hexes, etc.?

Apologise to the pork. Say, "See you soon."

--Ron_Hale-Evans?

Supporting Seattle Cosmic

The Center for Ludic Synergy and Seattle Cosmic Game Night are associates of Funagain Games. This means that 5% of your purchase there goes toward supporting us if you buy games via THIS VERY LINK. Any game you buy during a web session you start by clicking the previous link qualifies; in fact, if you click it and bookmark the Funagain page that appears, you can donate 5% to Seattle Cosmic whenever you buy games, without having to return to this page. It's just as easy to bookmark as not, so why not make this your regular Funagain link? THIS MEANS YOU.

We've never yet earned enough money from the associates program for Funagain to cut us a check, and we're not sure what we'd do with the money -- but we promise not to squander it on booze and floozies.

NEXT MEETING

Saturday, 15 February 2003, 5:00 PM at the apartment of Marty and Ron in Kent. Come play for fun and FABULOUS PRIZES! It will be a CosmicNight.

Remember, Seattle Cosmic Game Night occurs every weekend, in one of three locations: Kent, Mill Creek, or West Seattle. Email Ron Hale-Evans for a full schedule and directions. If you come, please bring a snack or drink to share (cookies, chips, soda, juice, etc.)

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